Looooooong Entry...

[ixnayonthetimma]

The big topic du jour right now is health care reform. And what follows are a few of my thoughts and observations on the health care reform debate overall. I will try to avoid any pointlessly political overtones, since it's too easy, just generates anger and shock value and usually goes nowhere but to distract from real and meaningful dialogue

Comments

[the_glass_jc]

This is too long. I will read it when I retire.

[ixnayonthetimma]

Then you will never read it, for great creators of entertainment never retire.

I demand the floor!

[the_glass_jc]

Okay, I read it and I've got some stuff to say. Let me start by pointing out that at this moment I don't have health insurance of any kind, so I'm in the same boat as all of those people that support health care reform bills

Re: No floor, but how about just a plank to walk off of?

[ixnayonthetimma]

Hmm yes, money. That's what it always comes down to. I've tried to pay attention where I could, and though the Obama administration "says" that most of the cost of the current plan will come from correcting waste and inefficiencies in the health care system, they never really mention where the rest will come from

[sting58493]

I like these points. I am about as capitalistic as one can get. It seems to me that any taxes paid towards a government welfare system goes to waste and gets placed elsewhere. If you look at your pay checks, the amount they take out for medicare might as well not be taken out of our checks and that can be your monthly payment to an HMO. Because seriously, am I ever going to use medicare or medicade? Even if I did, all of the doctors I actually like and trust don't except medicare or medicade because it short changes doctors. Yea there is the arguement that doctors make so much money. To an extent, yea they do. But why wouldn't they? They are in a business that will never become obsolete. They also paid 100,000 for that education. That means those people take a huge gamble to become physicians. My dad was a doctor. He did pretty well for himself. But as people began stupid lawsuits agaiinst doctors and insurance companies taking such ridiculous hits, insurance went up for doctors too. Because of that, my dad had to open

[sting58493]

The only government health care reform we really needed was that stupid pre existing thing. Essentially, if you loose your job and the insurance policy lapses (your car insurance is the same way btw) then your next insurance company won't cover your condition ie. asthma, chrones, allergies, cancer, hiv. But if you loose your job you do have a chance to keep the policy, it just costs money. If you have ever quit a job with benefits, you will get a letter from COBA (or something like that) and will offer you a rate to keep your insurance going. Saving money for this kind of rainy day is a nesessity with our system.

[roytheboy]

As always, this was a great and well informed post

[ixnayonthetimma]

Wow. I'm shocked. An (I would assume) fairly conservative person such as yourself actually in support of a government insurance option? That's not what I've been hearing from the media, after all.

Like with so many systems, the eventual health-care reform we will get would have been the best of both sides but will actually most likely be the worst of both sides.

The most damning argument against our current system and for a universal, single-payer system is the fact that we already spend the largest part of government money percentage-wise and the most overall per-capita for health care of all the other industrialized nations, most of which have the evil socialistic health care systems being denounced so much right now. But there are legitimate concerns in that the U.S. health system is the most responsive and people CAN get the best care if they can afford it.

So yes, it's very tricky...

[sting58493]

Looking at other systems is good in theory. But in other countries those system are just as broken as ours. They also loose money every year. Also, seeing a doctor is a huge pain in the ass over there. There are less Doctors, because there is much less incentive. We do have forms of government covered plans in America. Go down to Parkland hospital. The prisoners from Lew Sterrett and those who are too poor and require government aid get care for free. The only problem is people trying to see doctors are prioritized by condition because there are so many patients. The pharmacy system has patients on a lottary to just talk to a pharmacist and get a perscription

[sting58493]

Fixing a typo in my above statement. "Theoretically, we WOULDN'T have crowding in doctor's offices right now"